Here we use only sustainable, organic and gluten-free seasonal jokes. Comedy, satire, sports, editor and occasional cooking tips writer, Alex Kaseberg. E-mail to - or if you need to hire a comedy writer - alex.kaseberg@gmail.com
PayPal.Me/Lexkase

Saturday, January 31, 2015

The Winnetka Congregational Church. Where my parent's ashes are buried.

Rest in peace, Ernie

Ernie Banks
personified my growing up around Chicago in the Sixties.

How can a white guy
from the suburbs say a black man from Texas, who started in the Negro Leagues, represented his childhood?

Easy.

Ernie Banks was
Chicago. A good looking, talented, athletic, modest man who also worked his ass off and had a
vibrant personality and a great sense of humor. He was not flashy. That was my parents. That was my parent's friends. That was my Chicago.

New York and Los
Angeles were flashy. Los Angeles made all the movies, music and TV shows. New
York made everything else. Teams from New York and L.A. made the playoffs and
were on national TV. For quarterbacks, Joe Namath was New York. Roman Gabriel was L.A. We had lunch-pail guys Jack Concannon and Bobby Douglass.

The Cubs were on Chicago’s WGN.

Before they went national, WGN was such a
low-budget station my 7th and 8th grade school, Washburn Junior High,
had a better video studio.

Except for All
Star games, Ernie Banks never played on National TV. He played for some awful
teams and he still made the Hall of Fame. Just like my other boyhood idols, Gale
Sayers and Dick Butkus.

It wasn’t until
I left for college that my hometown of Winnetka and Chicago started starring in
movies, mostly by John Hughes. "She's Having a Baby" had a scene in our church, the Winnetka Congregational Church. The minister, the great Reverend Paul Allen, was our good friend.

Sure, my high
school, New Trier, produced more than its share of stars in Ann Margaret, Bruce
Dern, Rock Hudson and Charlton Heston. They had to go to Hollywood to get
famous. Nobody famous was in Chicago. We had no Kardashians. No Paris Hiltons.

Hollywood made
movies. New York had wild nightclubs. Chicago made things out of bricks and mortar. Then they ate something with meat, bread, potatoes,
cheese, fried onions and beer.

Our waitresses had beehive hairdos and reading glasses hanging from a fake pearl chain around their neck. They were named Dottie and they called everyone honey. Our bartenders were big-chested guys named Al and they gave you a lot of crap and told a lot of jokes.

Nobody was
famous in pre-Oprah Chicago. Except for Ernie Banks, Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Billy Williams and Ron
Santo. And they did not give one single damn about being famous. They just put
their noses down on the proverbial grindstone and worked like hell for some really crappy teams. My teams.

Then they went to Suel's Tavern and they had a brat sandwich - with mustard - and an Old Style beer. Or twenty Old Style beers.

Rest in peace,
Ernie Banks. A big part of my Chicago is being buried today.